Film Review: 10,000 BC

by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

10,000 BC (Cert. 12A, 109 mins)
Stars: Steven Strait, Camilla Belle, Cliff Curtis, Reece Ritchie, Tim Barlow, Marco Khan and Mo Zinal
Directed by Roland Emmerich

NO-ONE really knows what it was like to be alive in 10,000 BC, apart from the archaeological evidence. But it is a fair bet that it was nothing like the goings-on in this film.

But that rather misses the point of this rollicking adventure story, where woolly mammoths go on the rampage and sabre-toothed tigers befriend humans who help them out of traps.

And even archaeology knows nothing about the huge city of pyramids at the centre of this tale.

As Omar Sharif’s pompous-sounding narration makes clear from the start, we are in the land of myth here. So that means anything can happen and it most certainly does.

The plot revolves around tribesman D’Leh (Steven Strait) and his love for blue-eyed Evolet (Camilla Belle). They are living in a hut settlement somewhere in the frozen North when a rival tribe attacks and Evolet is taken away as a slave.

The rival tribesmen are riding horses (or “four-legged demons” as they are known here) and head off over the mountains to an unknown destination.

D’Leh is famed in the village for killing a woolly mammoth, although the killing was a bit of an accident and he is rather ashamed about the praise.

But love and a need to prove himself see him setting off after the slavers with a couple of companions.

Along the way, he not only has a number of adventures but picks up hundreds of others to join his mission.

It all ends in a final confrontation at the city where a mysterious God-like character rules, hidden behind a bit of net curtaining.

This may sound rather silly and it is, a film in which historical accuracy is discounted in favour of adventure. But director Emmerich, who co-wrote the script, knows how to keep an audience entertained and there is rarely a dull moment in the film.

The stars’ names may mean nothing to you (Sharif apart, they mean nothing to me, anyway) and all the effort and money is spent here on special effects and computerised images. They all work very well.

There is a woolly mammoth hunt early on to whet our appetites, to be followed by some big-beaked and aggressive birds, more mammoths and a sabre-toothed tiger which happens to be in a pit into which our hero falls.

The tiger is stuck under a piece of wood and when D’Leh removes it to allow the tiger to escape he is rewarded later when the creature comes to his rescue.

Meanwhile, on the slave march, blue-eyed Evolet is being groomed by a nasty, turbaned slaver while a bald and even nastier one thinks she is a jinx.

D’Leh runs across another tribe who think he is The One come to save them (a drawing on a rock shows a chap with a tiger) and agree to join his revenge party. There are deserts to cross, frozen mountains to climb, fights to fight and nasty creatures to battle.

It all comes to a climax when they reach the massive city (a combination of Egyptian and Inca architecture) where thousands of slaves are being used to build the structures using domesticated mammoths to pull the loads.

Getting the slaves on his side, D’Leh leads an attack on the city and finally the chap behind the net curtain emerges to face him.

Emmerich gives the story plenty of pace and, while the performances are only as good as they should be (much of it comes from the Steven Segal school of acting), the film fairly buzzes along.

The faces are quite modern-looking, many of the cast wearing dreadlocks, and the costumes a mixture of every pre-history film you have seen. But, as a mythol- ogical story, this is quite acceptable, even the curiously naive dialogue.

What matters is the action and there is plenty of that to keep cinema-goers amused or excited, depending on your point of view. The computer-generated imagery is well done and the vast landscape vistas often enthralling.

10,000 BC is in no sense a great film, but it does pass 109 minutes in entertaining fashion.

philkey@dailypost.co.uk